Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Unjust treatment of journalists will continue to be opposed

In April three Party of Regions' deputies - Iryna Berezhna, Yulia Lyovochkin and Iryna Horin were pelted with snowballs. Enraged 'Regionals' demanded minister of the interior, Vitaliy Zakharchenko get to the bottom of the incident, round up as many witnesses as possible for questioning, and arrest suspects.

The next day the police obtained mobile phone numbers from mobile phone operators of everyone who was near the scene of the incident. In the weeks that followed, investigators 'invited' them all in for questioning.

Ironically, one of those whose mobile phone was 'clocked' was well known journalist Olha Snitsarchuk. Even though she explained that she had been inside the parliament building when the snowball incident occurred and so saw nothing, it was made clear that she 'needed co-operate' and she was hauled in to give a statement.

Ironically, exactly one month later it was Olga herself who was beaten up during pro and anti government rallies just over a week ago, whilst police officers passively looked on.

As I posted previously, there is a mass of video and other evidence that thugs linked to Party of Regions led the nasty attack on the journalist and her colleague. Despite this, after Zakharchenko's disgraceful performance in parliament [see previous blog] it is unlikely the perpetrators will be properly dealt with by law enforcement officials.

The snowball incident, [during which no serious injuries were sustained,] was turned into a massive crime and many many dozens of people were questioned and/or detained.